Most modern buildings are built with security systems, emergency systems, heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, all of which have many sensors, fans, values, and actuators. These systems together are commonly referred to as a building automation system (BAS). Many of these devices are controlled by microcontroller or microprocessor located in field panels dispersed throughout a building or even a campus. The elements that make up the BAS are typically called points, panels, and equipment.
Equipment, panels, and points in a building automation system as shown in FIG. 1, may include legacy equipment from earlier attempts at automation and have limited resources and capabilities; they may even be from different manufactures. A BAS 13 having legacy equipment typically has a manager 14 in direct communication with legacy equipment 15, panel 16, and point 17. External devices, such as device 11 and device 12 may get data directly from the manager 14.
Turning to FIG. 2, a diagram 20 having multiple data consumers 24 and 26 requesting data from BAS 13 is depicted. A BAS having legacy building automation equipment, panels, and points, such as BAS 13 often have limited communication capabilities that can fail under stress. These limitations occur due to limited processing power, bandwidth limitations, and memory/buffer limitations. Furthermore, World Wide Web and even Internet access may be lacking in legacy devices in the BAS 13. Another problem that exists with BASs is equipment often is dedicated to an installation and not shared.
In view of the foregoing, there is an ongoing need for systems, apparatuses and methods for gathering data from one or more BAS that have legacy devices and/or limiting hardware and then making that data available to data consumers in a fault tolerant system that does not stress a BAS.